LEND ME YOUR EAR: HUMOROUS IS AS HUMOR DOES

Some years ago this newspaper published as essay of mine called "How many selves do you have?" A reader applauded me for having the courage to include my own incredible selves in the host I attributed to others.

I thought of this on reading Paul Greenberg's recent column entitled "Just the two of us." He managed to reduce his many selves to two opposites. Self-analysis is simpler if limited to only two opposites. Everyone makes mistakes, and the thought tends to keep us humble. At the same time, the stupidities we see in our fellow creatures help restore our faltering ego.

Thanksgiving is a time to thank God for the balance. Paul Greenberg's amusing divisions nicely balance the score. This is tantamount to what we do when we explain that love and hate, or laughter and tears, are extremes of the same emotion. Likewise, marital counselors prescribe laughter to wipe away tears, and a sense of humor to make a marriage work.

Authorities on the art of communication also prescribe a sense of humor for speaking and writing, but there is a limit. Two weeks ago, a radio station invited readers to a talk fest to question Dr. Walter Williams about his newspaper column "Black English? Try `mother tongue'."

Walter Williams is one of my favorite columnists, but unlike some of his critics, I assumed he was merely putting us on, in vowing that the prevailing English spoken in the Commonwealth of Virginia originated in England centuries ago. Although I cannot speak for the state of English that far back, more than eight decades of living have acquainted me with scores of Virginians, and I never met one who didn't speak flawless English. Were all of them out of touch with their native tongue?

I once told a house helper that all mice and roaches were born female and pregnant. Horrified, the newcomer exclaimed, "I didn't know that!" I didn't know that either, so I spared her the one about the woman who stopped washing and ironing her dirty paper money when she heard it was illegal to launder money.

These days, most of our great comedians seem to think that a nude body is deliriously funny, that every member of the human race was created to be laughed at. A beautiful body is God's creation, but an uncovered body at my time of life is neither beautiful nor funny to me. Nor would a painter or sculptor waste paint or dull his carving tools on my absence of curves.

Eons ago, I slaved over theories and techniques of the comic for a master's degree at Southern Cal (USC athletes deplore "Southern Cal", but I am no athlete), though I gave short shrift to the so-called "humor" of pre-Renaissance years. The civilized world does not condone making fun of the maimed, the halt, or the blind. Gentle readers, please pass this information on to our comedians who need it most.

During my year-long research on wit and humor, I read a Max Eastman book in which he stated that man is the only animal that laughs, because only man knows the difference between the way things are and the way they ought to be. Although I agree that man is the only creature capable of thought, I take issue with the idea that animals are human beings. Owners of pets and animal-rights extremists claim animals are human because they laugh and cry. But a weather expert counters that the panting of dogs is not laughing, it's their method of adjusting to the weather. And their shivering has to do with how little or how much fur covers their bodies.

True, hyenas make a sound that resembles laughter, but the sound is their way of communicating with their own kind and the world about them. Never mind all those cartoons showing dogs, cats, and birds at executives' desks. Many cartoonists are withdrawing their comic strips because of poor ratings. To our delight, Bil Keane's little Billy, now grown, is taking Family Circus over, so all is not lost.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

~Aileen Lorberg is a language columnist for the Southeast Missourian.